Bioeconomy – science and technology policy for agricultural development and food security

This paper reviews the fast move by many countries into bioeconomy strategies and related R&D investments and public science policy. It assesses the driving forces of these developments and the implications for international agricultural change and food security. The future of humankind will much depend on a secure and safe availability of food, energy, water, and industrial raw material, and these should be more and more based on renewable resources. This puts the bioeconomy the emerging cross-cutting economic sector that produces, transforms, and uses bio-based materials and products – at the center of sustainable economic strategies. In a bioeconomy new competitions for biomass are generated, and complementarities are evolving too. The former may adversely impact food security, while the latter may enhance economic efficiency and environmental sustainability. The paper takes a holistic view to identify the synergies between technologies, creation of new links in and between value chains (e.g. production of bio-chemicals alongside production of biofuels, use for waste products of other biobased products in chemical and building material industries). Bioeconomy means ‘biologisation’ of the economy as an economy-wide and industrial strategy. The paper concludes that the risks of the bioeconomy for food security should be addressed by increased S&T investment, including for biotechnologies, and development of markets in which emerging economies can join. Note: illustrations are in an accompanying power point presentation and will be integrated later 1 Joachim von Braun is Professor for economic and technical change and Director of the Center for Development Research (ZEF), Bonn University 2 The emerging bioeconomy In the past five years numerous countries – mostly high income countries and some emerging economies have designed and adopted bioeconomy strategies and included them prominently into their science policy agendas (Table 1). Some developing countries have taken note of this trend and are also considering bioeconomy strategies. What are the drivers of this new strategic trend? And what are opportunities and risks for development and food and nutrition security? The answers to these questions in brief are: • The bioeconomy is driven by changed factor price structures and related price expectations, technological opportunities, and changed preferences. • Opportunities within the bioeconomy relate to income and job opportunities and investment incentives for agriculture worldwide on the one hand, while risks relate to accelerated scarcity of biomass as biomass-based products may compete with food availability and adversely impact on the poor, unless new technologies are over-compensating the potential scarcities, or social protection measures are expanded. These issues shall be elaborated in this paper, and in particular a science policy shall be considered that enhances the opportunities and prevents the risks of the bioeconomy for the poor. Table 1: Bioeconomy Age: new science and policy initiatives 2009-13 Australia Bioenergy – Strategic Plan 2012–2015 Brasil Biotechnology Development Policy (2007) Danmark Agreement on Green Growth (2009) Germany Nationale Forschungsstrategie BioÖkonomie 2030 (2010) EU-Commission A Bioeconomy for Europe (2012) Finnland National Resource Strategy and Sust. Bio-Economy (2011) Ireland Delivering our Green Potential (2012) Canada Biorefining Conversions Network (2009) Malaysia Bioeconomy Initiative and National Biomass Strategy (2011) Netherlands Biobased Economy 2010–2015 Russia Bioindustry and Bioresources – BioTech 2030 (2012) Sweden Research and Innovation Strategy for Bio-based Econ. (2011) UK UK Bioenergy Strategy (2011) USA National Bioeconomy Blueprint (2012)